Then and Now

One advantage of having five children in six years is that you can sometimes get them to operate like a human computer and if you keep up the interest, they will, mostly, fulfil the task…

In those days before computers, publicising oneself as a performer willing to come and perform in venues far and wide, the only means of advertising one’s availability and product was by means of brochure, envelope, address, stamp and postbox.

Thus, having provided the brochures fresh from the printer, the envelopes and the stamps, I would marshal the children in line on the floor. Two would fold the brochures as needed, pass them to the next two who would insert them into envelopes and the last one would affix the stamps. I then addressed each one by hand from the lists of Music Clubs and Societies, Arts Centres and Festivals up and down the land. These could be had from the various Regional Arts Council organisations. It was an annual event and I think the children quite liked doing it, despite the occasional argument that the previous person ‘hadn’t done it properly’.

Not so nowadays. We simply do everything at home… communing with a small apparatus in the hand. Is it better or is it worse, I wonder. Perhaps it is just…different.

Similarly different is the whole manner of preparation to become a performer in the first place. As I followed through on my determination to become a soloist with an instrument no one knew of or cared about, I had very little in the way of audio visuals to help guide me. True, there were expensive records to be had but their scarcity in the field of double bass solo works only added to the challenge.

In many ways, it was similar to my starting out on the cello as a fourteen year old girl at school. At home we had only a wind-up gramophone with expensive metal needles, limited to only ten plays. I had no cello recordings, only ‘Polovtsian Dances’ from Borodin’s Prince Igor’ to whet my musical appetite as well as my mother’s recordings of the great sopranos to inspire me. (my mother had a beautiful soprano voice ) Maybe this is where my penchant for the musical saw came from, who knows…

By contrast, nowadays I can listen to my granddaughter in her bedroom singing Rusalka’s ‘Song to the Moon’ with full orchestra accompaniment emanating from just an iPad. I cannot help but wonder how much difference such a resource would have made to my efforts. But we are all merely the product of our own time and of whatever particular advantages might have then been available.

I believe the greatest boon to my early career was that plethora of small concert clubs, modest recital venues, music societies and local music festivals. It was possible to create a career and income from those events which is THE essential part of becoming a full time performer. But most of all, every single one of those appearances taught me new lessons in how to present my programmes, to read an audience, to create atmosphere, to understand what worked and what didn’t and above all gain confidence and enjoyment from being on a performance platform. (and also to see if they invited you back!) Happy days…